


you don’t have my lover’s touch

by blanchtt



Series: 500X LEDA [21]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 17:13:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11339817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchtt/pseuds/blanchtt
Summary: Alison slips into their shared office, sits down, boots up her computer, and gets to work. Every day, it’s the same routine. It doesn’t seem like there’s much more to it than that. Apparently, it’s not as easy for everyone else to understand.





	you don’t have my lover’s touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_other_lutece_sister](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_other_lutece_sister/gifts).



> Rare-pair minific prompt: Alison/Rachel, lipstick stains.

 

 

 

 

Alison slips into their shared office, sits down, boots up her computer, and gets to work. Every day, it’s the same routine. It doesn’t seem like there’s much more to it than that. Apparently, it’s not as easy for everyone else to understand.

 

“Can’t believe you’re sittin’ next to the bitch queen from hell all day,” Sarah says loudly, popping her head in the open doorway, and Alison frowns, looks away from where Sarah’s taken up a spot, lounging against the doorframe. “What’s it like?”

                           

“Surprisingly quiet,” Alison answers, opening up the spreadsheet she’d been poring over the other day, and Sarah pushes herself away from the door, gets the message and walks away with a chuckle. Sarah’s nice enough and she doesn’t mean to be rude, but she’s got a lot of work to do today.

 

At exactly eight o’clock, Alison looks back up at the door, gives Rachel a cursory smile hello, and goes back to her work as the other woman walks in and sits down at her desk, getting ready for the day.

 

Rachel is fairly quiet except when talking to clients on the phone, and Alison has never had a problem with her. She’s more than happy to sit in her corner and leave Rachel hers, the two of them exchanging no more than hellos and goodbyes over the course of nine-plus hours each day.

 

She’s not quite sure why that’s so hard for everyone to understand.

 

 

-

 

 

Siobhan sends out an email to the business development team, and just before three o’clock hits Alison puts her things away, gets up, and heads over to the conference room and takes a seat.

 

Surprisingly, Sarah is early, sitting splay-legged in one of the plush leather chair and inspecting her nails.

 

“She’s ditching her earlier meeting,” Cosima remarks from next to Sarah, barely looking up from her laptop where she’s still working, and Alison hums, unsurprised at the explanation, and sits across from her.

 

The others filter in fairly quickly, those of them not already out of town, and soon enough Delphine and Siobhan take seats. Last, of course, is Rachel, walking into the conference room at a leisurely pace at exactly three o’clock.

 

Siobhan looks over at her, waits until Rachel’s taken a seat, and then starts to speak. The meeting is short and to the point, Siobhan-style, and takes stock of what they’ve accomplished, looks ahead to their next few weeks, and discusses where they’re at with their clients, which inevitably turns to travel plans.

 

Delphine, of course, has the European market cornered, Sanofi practically eating out of her hand, and Siobhan looks pleased at the details of her upcoming meeting in Paris. The same with Sarah, who’s been working with Novo Nordisk, and who leans over to whisper to Cosima that she needs a ticket to Seattle as soon as possible. Cosima is off to Los Angeles to meet with Amgen tomorrow, which she announces distractedly, engrossed in whatever’s on her laptop.

 

It leaves only her and Rachel left, and after Rachel announces the headway she’s been making with GlaxoSmithKline, Alison adds in her own brief weekly recap on Genentech, and with that Siobhan wraps up the meeting and jokingly tells them all to get back to work.

 

 

-

 

 

Last time she checked, DYAD was doing well enough to buy them each their own hotel room. Rachel is also _literally_ the boss’s daughter. And yet the next morning Alison stares at the email from Siobhan, perhaps shocked enough that Sarah can read it on her face, cups her mug of tea in her hands, stops hanging around in the doorway and walks over to her, reads her email over her shoulder.  

 

“Shite,” Sarah whispers, and then starts to laugh, and Alison purses her lips at the volume. “You’re gonna be shackin’ up with the uber-bitch!”

 

“I’m perfectly certain we’ll both be more than busy enough to hardly see each other, unlike certain people,” Alison says pointedly, clicking out of the email and getting back to work, but Sarah only ignores the dig and keeps laughing. She doesn’t really mean it, anyway, and despite having all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the head Sarah does manage to land clients regularly, and not just small ones, either. Alison has to admit that maybe there is more than one way to negotiate, although Sarah is the only one with the personality to pull off the shenanigans she does.

 

Alison shoos Sarah away and tries to focus.

 

Giving herself something to do is calming, and by the time Rachel sits down at her desk (although, workaholic that they all are, she no doubt read the email on her phone already), Alison is too engrossed in looking up flights on Kayak to worry about what she’ll do when she gets to San Diego.

 

If Rachel feels anything at being assigned the same hotel room as Alison, she doesn’t show it.

 

 

-

 

 

“Can we have breakfast for dinner?” Gemma asks excitedly, bouncing on her bed, and there is _too much_ going on right now for her to stop any of that.

 

“Of course,” Alison says, quick and distracted, because tossing some water and pre-made pancake mix together is easier and surprisingly healthier than stopping at McDonald’s. She grabs some clothes out of Gemma’s wardrobe, puts together a little outfit and packs it away in her duffelbag, and calls out, “Oscar! Are you packing your bag for your father’s house?”

 

“Already done!” comes the reply from the living room, and Alison breathes a little easier knowing that’s out of the way, ignores the squeaking of Gemma’s bedsprings and doesn’t turn around as she searches for socks.

 

She gets it all done, of course, the kids’ things put together and fed and cleaning up dinner dishes and putting them in the rack in the dishwasher just as Donnie pulls up outside and parks.

 

Alison sees them to the door, drops a kiss on Gemma’s cheek and hugs Oscar, and nods curly to Donnie before he ushers them away.

 

It’s only later, bordering on eleven, that Alison drags her suitcase out from the garage and up the stairs, wrangles it up onto her bed and opens it up. In it go her toiletries’ bag, a blow-dryer and a straightener, heels and slacks and blouses and blazers and panties.

 

It’s at that last part that Alison frowns, flipping through her drawers quickly. No. No. Embarrassing. No. Not fancy enough. Coming out of a crumbling marriage would have been a great time to invest in some nicer lingerie, but she’s got nothing more than plain panties, sports bras, the occasional overly-glamorous bra from Victoria’s Secret thrown in from when she’s still tried to feel _something_.

 

It’s highly unlikely, but she’d die on the spot if Rachel Duncan saw the lame contents of her suitcase, and so Alison picks the least embarrassing items, tosses them in, zips up the suitcase, and takes it downstairs and leaves it by the door for the next day.

 

 

-

 

 

The next time she sees Rachel is when she opens the hotel room door, although Alison doesn’t see her as much as hear her.

 

Alison trudges to what must be her bed, since the other one already has a sharp outfit laid out on it, and drops her purse on it, pushes her suitcase into the corner, and kicks off her heels. From the bathroom, door ajar, comes Rachel’s voice.

 

“I’ll be leaving for GSK at one. Are you busy?”

 

Alison takes out her phone, opens up her calendar app and scrolls through it, but there’s nothing on the agenda other than preparing for tomorrow. “No,” she admits, and slips off her jacket, walking over to the closet to hang it up. “I’m meeting with Genentech first thing tomorrow morning.”

 

The door to the bathroom opens up quickly, nearly causing her to jump as she walks by it, and Alison takes a breath as Rachel appears, make-up fresh and glancing down at the watch on her right wrist. “If you’d like, you can accompany me,” she says, and when Rachel does look up, expecting an answer, GSK slips Alison’s mind entirely.

 

It’s almost unbelievable how different she and Sarah are, even for distant cousins – where Sarah slumps against the doorframe, loud and sprawling, Rachel’s hand skims it, a hip cocked, silent as she watches her with a half-smile on her face, and Alison turns, hangs up her jacket and agrees.

 

“Sure,” she says.

 

If someone who’s on a corner-office track wants her to tag along so they can give her pointers, she’ll happily take them.

 

 

-

 

 

And Rachel is ruthless. She has a reply for every reason not to go with DYAD that GSK brings out, backed with statistics and a serious poker face. They’ve probably already won the contract, but towards the end one of the men pipes up _still_ , fingers tented in front of himself like a pompous idiot.

 

“Trials are already ongoing at Brightborn,” he offers, trying to be sly, and Rachel arches a brow.

 

 _Oh_ , Alison thinks, and takes a breath. If there’s any company that Rachel would _love_ to crush, it’s Brightborn. 

 

She’s hardly said anything the entire meeting, and it’s a gamble. But they’re in a room full of men who remind her of Donnie, eating-farting-Donnie-men who Rachel has not spent more than ten minutes of her life with, and so Alison cuts in, speaks up and goes for a low blow instead of expounding on stats like Rachel has for the past three minutes.

 

“Yes, but Brightborn’s PR is in the gutter,” Alison says demurely, and then smiles. “You get what you pay for.”

 

There’s a beat of silence before one of them laughs, getting them all started on a good old boys-club chuckle – _Brigthborn! What a joke!_ – and Alison glances at Rachel out of the corner of her eye, finds her smiling thinly.

 

“Just as my colleague suggested,” Rachel continues, and moves to hold a hand patrician-like in thought, almost touching her face but never quite doing so. “At DYAD, you’ll receive top-notch work. We’re worth the price.”

 

 

-

 

 

It’s eight when Rachel suggests dinner out loud, remarks that the car will be here in fifteen minutes – and that all implies that Rachel is asking _her_ to come along, because working in the same office as Rachel for half a year and exchanging a grand total of something like four conversations has taught her that Rachel doesn’t waste words.

 

Alison sits up, puts aside her novel, and slips out of bed. All it takes is a change of clothes, some fresh lipstick, a few minutes to touch-up her bangs, and she’s ready.

 

It’s when they’re sitting at a table, face to face with Rachel, that Alison thinks of Sarah and her disbelief, because it’s like being a bitch was the magic key. Alison picks up the menu, looks it over and doesn’t even know where to start. “What do you usually get?” she asks, making eye-contact with Rachel briefly, and catches the smile that starts to spread on her face. It’s all going on the company card and so Alison goes with Rachel’s suggestion, and once the waiter is gone she and Rachel fall into conversation, _real_ conversation, smoothly.

 

It only hits a rough spot when a bottle of wine makes its appearance, and Alison reaches out, holds a hand just a hairsbreadth above her wineglass before Rachel can pour her any – because she knows Rachel, as much as she can in so little time. And so Rachel only pours herself a glass, a brow raised silently.

 

“It’ll be two years in October,” Alison explains, steeling herself.

 

“Congratulations,” Rachel says, in her languid way that might just be mocking, particularly as she raises her own glass and takes a sip. But behind glassware her expression is sincere, even if the way she goes through life gives off the impression that she never is.

 

Alison gets it, and maybe that’s why they’ve lasted so long together. Being the bitch is never going to make you any friends, but someone’s got to do it.

 

Rachel places her wineglass back down on the table, and here is where it can become smooth once again or fall apart. Alison looks away, sips at the water in her glass for a moment’s respite, and in doing so catches sight of a smudge of Rachel’s lipstick on the rim of her own glass.

 

She can practically hear Sarah crowing about Rachel Duncan, uber-bitch, proven not to be above the laws of physics (although she can imagine Sarah saying something cruder, really). But the only thought going through Alison’s mind is how normal, how human, how beautiful it is.

 

She turns, meets Rachel’s gaze, and there is no more nervousness – only two women laughing over a drink and dinner, pleased at their own accomplishments. 

 

 

-

 

 

Rachel is not predictable, but she is controlled, and Alison can respect that.

 

She ends up with Rachel on top of her (unplanned), hands on Rachel's waist holding her steady and nosing at her collarbone, open-mouthed and teeth scraping against flawless skin. They lose clothing (unexpected), and the La Perla set (unsurprising) that she’s always wanted but never been able to afford looks divine on Rachel and causes her hands to waver, as if unsure what to enjoy first (predictable).

 

Alison opts for running her tongue along the swell of Rachel’s breast and, on a hunch, biting down hard enough for a bruise to bloom in a pattern of tiny broken vessels, mouth-shaped and intentional, before Rachel’s hands slip up her arms, encircle her wrists, and press lightly, so as to hold her down against the bed.

 

Alison thinks maybe the same is what Rachel enjoys about her, and so in that respect they’re very well paired. 

 

 

-

 

 

On the flight home, Rachel works on her laptop the entire time. It’s enough that Rachel sought the seat next to her, and she’s got her own proposals to work on anyway. They are not the type to stare moon-eyed at each other over dinner or fall asleep on each the other’s shoulders on the trip home.

 

And besides. Rachel does touch her hand, briefly, and leans in, probably for the sole purpose of brushing her nose against her temple as if by accident, her short hair tickling her cheek, and repeats her name like a secret.

 

 

-

 

 

Alison wonders, briefly, if that’s it.

 

Rachel is gone for most of Monday morning, and Alison stops by Siobhan’s office, gets the okay to leave early enough to take Gemma to soccer practice.

 

So it’s Tuesday morning, Sarah chatting about this-and-that at her before Sarah stops in the middle of her sentence, when Rachel’s quiet but warning _‘Miss Manning’_ effectively silences her as she steps into the room and heads for her desk.

 

Sarah gets the message and leaves with the usual amount of eye rolling, huffing, and shuffling of her high-heeled boots against the floor, but she does leave eventually, and Alison finally looks up.

 

Rachel’s blouse is low-cut, her demeanor too haughty for it to be anything other than couture while on someone else it might dip into scandalous, and Alison swallows, looks away from the shadow of mottled bruising that slips just barely over the edge of her bra, and meets Rachel’s eyes.

 

“Dinner?” Alison proposes, feeling not so much bold as at ease, and Rachel reaches up, brushes a lock of hair back behind her ear slowly, stiffly, before nodding.

 

"That would be agreeable," Rachel replies, looking very much like she's trying not to seem pleased, and so Alison smiles for them both. 

 

 

 


End file.
